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"Learning to see"
How to sell art
Famed American-Lebanese poet Kahlil Gibran once wrote, “The optimist sees the rose and not its thorns; the pessimist stares at the thorns, oblivious to the rose”. If this quote was written to describe the visual artist it would have ended by saying, “The visual artist sees neither the thorns nor the rose, but an intricate web of lines and shapes." Here is a technique that will help train your eyes to see more clearly. Find a photograph you want to draw. Divide the length of time it will take you to finish this drawing into four equal time segments. For each segment, draw the photo from a different angle beginning with the right side up. After devoting your allotted time to drawing this way, turn the photograph and your drawing upside down. Then turn it on its side and so on. With enough practise this will train your mind to see past the surface of your subject and into the deeper detail that gives the subject its true life. Soon it will become as normal to draw upside down as it does drawing side ways.
"Drawing is the backbone to most forms of visual art."
Drawing is the backbone to most forms of visual art. If your goal is to improve your drawing ability, than you must learn to stop and smell the roses. Or in this case, stop and observe the roses. When you learn to see things as they are you’ll come to understand that a rose is much more than a few thorns, a stem and some pedals. It’s in fact a multitude of shapes, lines and circles which combine to give the rose its outward appearance. Without this intricate web of shapes the rose could not exist in the form that we perceive it. It would have no foundation in which to be a rose.
"learn to see things as they truly are, not as they appear to be."
Once you have command of this technique you’ll see that a portrait is no more difficult to draw then an apple, or a glass, or a tree. In the end everything is made up from a series of shapes and lines, and no shape is any more difficult to draw then another. So next time your out for a walk stop and observe the roses. And draw one for me.
Robb Scott
Contact: artist@www.robbscottdrawings.com
2221 Lilyvale Road
Greenfield, NS
B6L 3T9
Articles copyright 2008-2009 Robb Scott ©
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